Hohokam Archaeology Along Phase B of the Tucson Aqueduct Central Arizona Project, Volume 2: Excavations at Fastimes (AZ AA:12:384) A Rillito Phase site in the Avra Valley

Hohokam Archaeology Along Phase B of the Tucson Aqueduct Central Arizona Project, Volume 2: Excavations at Fastimes (AZ AA:12:384) A Rillito Phase site in the Avra Valley

Part of the Tucson Aqueduct Project Phase B project

Editor(s): Jon Czaplicki; John C. Ravesloot

Year: 1988

Summary

In 1986 archaeologists from the Cultural Resource Management Division of the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, excavated a Rillito phase Hohokam settlement that lay in the path of the Tucson Aqueduct Phase B, Central Arizona Project. The site, AZ AA:12:384, nicknamed "Fastimes," was located northwest of Tucson at the northern end of the Avra Valley, some 6,7 km southwest of the Santa Cruz River. Trenching and stripping revealed 96 features, including at least 30 pit houses. Thirty-eight features were excavated or tested: 17 pit houses, 6 cremations, 2 inhumations, 8 roasting pits, and 5 other pit features. The features were distributed among five distinct house groups, some which had one or more house clusters. The total site area was 164,300 square meters. The variety of artifactual and nonartifactual materials analyzed indicates that Fastimes probably represents five farmsteads, all occupied during the relatively unstudied Rillito phase (A.D. 700 to 900) of the Colonial period, Some of the structures were occupied year-round, but site use may have lasted only a generation or two. Exact contemporaneity of the house groups could not be determined, but in some cases the general building sequences within groups could tentatively be reconstructed. Fastimes represents intensive use of nonriverine resources by the Hohokam and provides new insights into their occupation of the Avra Valley during the Colonial period. The occupants took advantage of ideal floodwater farming conditions at the distal end of the bajada where the site was situated; they grew corn and probably squash and cotton. Hohokam families harvested an abundant variety of wild plant foods. They also hunted, mainly jackrabbit, although mule deer, pronghorn antelope, and kit fox also were taken for food and skins.

Cite this Record

Hohokam Archaeology Along Phase B of the Tucson Aqueduct Central Arizona Project, Volume 2: Excavations at Fastimes (AZ AA:12:384) A Rillito Phase site in the Avra Valley. Jon Czaplicki, John C. Ravesloot. Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series ,178. Tucson, Arizona: Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona. 1988 ( tDAR id: 378252) ; doi:10.6067/XCV8KP830M